{"id":578122,"date":"2026-04-01T08:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T08:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/578122\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T08:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T08:13:09","slug":"southern-launch-to-support-tracking-of-nasas-artemis-ii-mission-from-koonibba-test-range","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/578122\/","title":{"rendered":"Southern Launch to support tracking of NASA\u2019s Artemis II mission from Koonibba Test Range"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/dfd.jpg.webp.webp\" rel=\"lightbox\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/dfd.jpg.webp.webp\" class=\"alignright lazyload\" width=\"300px\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 700px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 700\/500;\"\/><br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Southern Launch says it has been selected to support tracking of NASA\u2019s Artemis II Orion mission from South Australia, using passive Doppler tracking infrastructure at the Koonibba Test Range.<\/p>\n<p>In an email labelled \u201cmedia alert\u201d, the company said its role will be delivered through partners at Raven Defense as NASA assesses \u201cthe broader aerospace community\u2019s tracking capabilities\u201d for future Moon and Mars missions. The work involves passively tracking the Orion spacecraft to collect tracking data without transmitting commands or signals to the vehicle.<\/p>\n<p>Southern Launch said the activity builds on an earlier effort during Artemis I in 2022, when 10 volunteers tracked the Orion spacecraft.<\/p>\n<p>According to the company, the support will use a TALON telemetry dish supplied by Raven Defense. It described the system as an S-band antenna capable of passive Doppler tracking and flight data collection, and said the Australian operations would complement Raven Defense activity in the Northern Hemisphere.<\/p>\n<p>Southern Launch said NASA was targeting a launch on Thursday at 8:45am Adelaide time, with daily launch windows of two hours from 2\u20137 April (Australian dates).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Southern Launch says it has been selected to support tracking of NASA\u2019s Artemis II Orion mission from South&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[283598,64,63,131,128,120718],"class_list":["post-578122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-artemis-ii-mission-from-koonibba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nasa","tag-science","tag-southern-launch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}